- Since 2014, Samoa’s “little dodo” has been listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List: related to the extinct dodo, an adult manumea, as it’s called locally, has not been photographed well in the wild, and its song has rarely been recorded.
- But an underfunded conservation effort led by the Samoa Conservation Society and the nation’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) could still snatch this fascinating species from the extinction list, a new commentary argues.
- “In my view, a large-scale, multiyear forest conservation project funded by the Global Environment Facility and led by the MNRE is essential,” the author writes.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
See All Key Ideas
It’s early August 2025. Deep in the rainforests of Upolu, on the island of Samoa, Moeumu “Moe” Uili and I have paused our hike, counting the seconds between coo calls from an unseen pigeon hidden in the dense canopy.
Moe mutters, “Nah, the intervals between the calls are too irregular. That’s got to be a lupe,” referring to the much more common Pacific imperial pigeon (Ducula pacifica).
“Are you still using the number of coo calls per sequence to distinguish lupe from manumea?” I ask per the latter bird and the object of our search: the tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris), also called “the little dodo.”
“Not anymore,” she replies. “Turns out lupe can have sequences of up to 40 calls …”
“Damn,” I sigh.
A bird ‘hide’ or ‘blind’ built in Uafato in hopes of facilitating an extremely rare sighting of an adult manumea, Samoa’s critically endangered ‘little dodo.’ Image courtesy of Samoa Conservation Society.
It’s been a few years since I last joined a manumea search, and I’m glad to be here again. The rainforest of Samoa still enchants me — its timeless atmosphere, stifling humidity, slippery trails, and chorus of bizarre bird calls. Towering tree ferns, giant leaves, dangling lichens, parasitic orchids and humongous strangling ficus (“the kings of the forest,” or aoa in Samoan) all surrounded by a cacophony of pigeons, doves and honey-eaters. Among them, the high-pitched whistles of the ma‘oma‘o (Gymnomyza samoensis), an endangered and endemic giant honey-eater, pierces the stillness. It’s one of the most haunting, otherworldly sounds in Samoa.
As with many oceanic islands, Samoa has served across the depths of time as an open-air laboratory of evolution. It has fostered bizarre adaptations like waterbirds that thrive far from water — such as the flat-billed kingfisher (Todiramphus recurvirostris), the Pacific golden plover (Pluvialis fulva), the purple swamphen (Porphyrio melanotus samoensis), and the buff-banded rail (Hypotaenidia philippensis) — and swiftlets that flit like bats low through the forest.
But few creatures are as peculiar as the manumea. Its thick, curved bill is unique among pigeons. It fills a niche more typical of parrots, using its specialized beak to crack the hard fruits of the maota (Dysoxylum spp.) tree. It’s listed among the planet’s most evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered (EDGE) species, ranked 8th out of a total of 662 birds. Manumea are a conservation icon within the Pacific oceanic region, and one of only three living relatives of that ultimate symbol of oceanic extinctions: the dodo of Mauritius, Raphus cucullatus.
Since 2014, the manumea has been listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. That year, it was uplisted from endangered after researchers realized that earlier abundance estimates had been drastically overinflated. The confusion stemmed from its call, which closely resembles that of the lupe. Previous population estimates by Ulf Beichle, the authority on the species, relied heavily on vocal identifications, and were later shown to be significantly overestimated.
The critically endangered ‘little dodo’ is an icon in Samoa and adorns coins and currency like this 20 tala note.
Since I began studying the species in 2014, I realized that nobody was really able to tell the two species apart based on the call, and I dared to publish this plain fact. Since then, it’s been widely accepted that we did not yet have a definitive understanding of the call, and that realization launched a years-long effort to solve the mystery — an effort that, even now, remains unresolved.
By then, it had become evident that the species had suffered a sharp decline starting in the 1990s, due to a familiar cocktail of human-driven threats: deforestation of lowland rainforests (manumea prime habitat), the spread of invasive mammals, and bycatch from lupe hunters.
Compounding the problem is this bird’s extremely shy, elusive nature. Whether its cryptic behavior is a recent adaptation to threats or a long-standing trait is debated. Beichle insists that during his fieldwork in the 1980s, sightings were relatively straightforward.
Remarkably, no clear photograph exists of an adult manumea in its natural habitat. The opportunity of a high-quality image was missed when sightings were still common in the 1980s, and the best photos taken by Beichle are of caged birds. Moe captured the only decent photo in 2013, but it was of a juvenile perched outside her hotel room at the forest edge. It’s probably no coincidence that the only clear image of a wild adult in full plumage shows a freshly killed specimen resting in the hands of a local pigeon hunter, taken by the late botanist Art Whistler in the early 2000s.
Arguably Samoa’s leading manumea expert, despite being only in her early 40s, Moe has devoted more than a decade to its conservation, first with the environment ministry, where I first met her, and then with the Samoa Conservation Society (Sosaiete Fa’asao o Samoa, or SFS), while pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Colorado in the U.S. Soft-spoken and knowledgeable, she has acquired an extraordinary wealth of field experience.
Moe is joined in her research these days by Vilikesa “Vili” Masibalavu, a veteran conservationist from Fiji. In the early 2000s, following the Fijian coup, he left a government position to work for BirdLife Fiji, and has since dedicated his life to surveying rare and unusual Pacific birds. A gentleman in his 60s, Vili has become a key collaborator with BirdLife’s regional Pacific office.
A juvenile manumea photographed by Ulf Beichle.
I’ve only ever seen a manumea once — and only for half a second, in flight, in the Uafato Forest in 2016 — just a week after Vili had a confirmed sighting in the same spot. Its vibrant bill, red and yellow, flashed in the sunlight like a parrot’s, a surreal moment I’ll never forget. That fleeting glimpse remains my only definite encounter, despite years of searching. In the last decade, there have been only three confirmed sightings — each at the same location.
“You know,” Vili said during our hike, “sometimes I wonder if the bird I saw in 2016 and again in 2024 is the same individual … Maybe one of the last left on Upolu.” I looked at him in silence, sharing the same fear, as tropicbirds in courtship display with fairy trailing tails wheeled above the forest canopy down in the valley.
In 2019, the SFS and partners developed the Manumea Recovery Plan for 2020-2029. Since then, they’ve secured several grants from international donors to lead the implementation of the plan in collaboration with the Samoan Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE).
Identifying the manumea’s call remains a top priority. As Moe puts it, “It would be a game changer. Right now, we don’t even have a reliable distribution map, let alone a population estimate for this bird.” By the time we realized we lacked a confirmed call, the bird had already become too rare and elusive to observe calling in the wild. Beichle’s few recordings from the 1980s were made with analog devices and are of limited analytical quality. Today, only three coo call sequences can be confidently attributed to the manumea.
To tackle this obstacle, I collaborated extensively with Indigenous pigeon hunters between 2016 and 2020, combining their local ecological knowledge with bioacoustic analysis from automated recordings in the forest. In 2020, two papers (Baumann and Beichle and my own) offered conflicting findings, but both highlighted — independently and using different methodologies — one possible clue: the regularity of coo call intervals in a sequence. Manumea sequences seem more evenly spaced than lupe calls, and if verified, this pattern could become a critical tool for acoustic identification.
Moe and the SFS, now with support from BirdLife and the IUCN, have sought help from Cornell University and Colossal Biosciences to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to the problem. But even AI struggles without a sufficient data set. The lack of confirmed manumea recordings remains the main barrier.
Public education efforts like this new mural seek to raise the profile of Samoa’s ‘little dodo.’ Image courtesy of Samoa Conservation Society.
Over the years, various zoos have expressed interest in captive-breeding programs, but how can you breed a bird you can’t find? Capturing individuals would require multiple confirmed sightings and careful logistics — neither of which currently exist.
The story of the poʻouli — a Hawaiian honeycreeper discovered in 1973 and declared extinct in 2003 — looms over the manumea’s fate. Despite decades of research, poorly coordinated conservation efforts failed to save it. I cited the poʻouli as a cautionary tale in the Manumea Recovery Plan: a textbook conservation case of “too little, too late.”
I asked James Atherton, president of the SFS, for his view on the situation: “Are we witnessing the inevitable extinction of this unique species, or is the scarcity of sightings misleading us?”
“Option 1,” he replied instinctively. Then, pausing, he added, “But we have to hope. We can’t give up. We have to keep searching.”
When I asked what’s most needed to save the manumea, Atherton’s answer was simple: “One: funding. Two: funding. Three: funding.”
And he’s right. The recovery plan is barely 20% implemented at its halfway mark. The SFS has made commendable progress in recent years — raising awareness at the national level, controlling rats within a key conservation area, creating new community conservation areas, and continuing field surveys.
But it’s not enough. Not for a critically endangered bird — Samoa’s national icon, proudly depicted on the 20-tala note and 50-sene coin — nor for a species as important to local cultural heritage.
Artist’s concept of a flying adult manumea, Samoa’s ‘little dodo.’ Image via Samoa Conservation Society’s manumea conservation fundraising page.
In my view, a large-scale, multiyear forest conservation project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and led by the MNRE is essential. “After all,” Moe reminds me, “the manumea, along with other pigeons, doves and flying foxes, are key seed dispersers of the Samoan rainforest.”
As we conclude our hike, the sun dips low over the trees, and the sky fills with the slow silhouettes of hundreds of flying foxes — Samoa’s largest airborne terrestrial creatures — gliding above the canopy and ready for breakfast.
When I spoke with Suemalo Talie Foliga, acting CEO of the Department of Environment and Conservation in the MNRE, he seemed cautiously and vaguely optimistic that future international funding might be allocated to such a project. I shared my hope that the manumea’s stronghold may lie hidden in remote, largely unexplored mountain forests of Savai‘i. For logistical and financial reasons, most fieldwork has focused on Upolu, home to the capital, Apia. But Savai‘i still boasts the largest intact tropical rainforest in Polynesia.
Suemalo, a native of Savai‘i, agreed: “A thorough search of Savai‘i mountain rainforest must involve the surrounding coastal villages. They are the traditional custodians of the land. Before any exploration begins, we need to build trust and hold open discussions with them.”
Only with their support, adequate resources, and renewed urgency, can we hope to prevent the silent extinction of the manumea — the enigmatic Little Dodo of Samoa.
Gianluca Serra is a wildlife ecologist from Florence, Italy, with 25 years of international experience in conservation of biodiversity and endangered species, community-based protected areas management through international aid, and the valuing of Indigenous knowledge.
Related audio from Mongabay’s podcast: A discussion with author Natalie Kyriacou, whose new book about conservation, action and biophilia is always honest and often humorous, listen here:
See related coverage of conservation in Samoa:
Samoa’s new marine spatial plan protects 30% of the country’s ocean
See related by this author:
The effort to save Syria’s northern bald ibis population failed, but much can be learned (analysis)
Citations:
Serra, G., Sherley, G., Failagi, S. A., Foliga, S. T., Uili, M., Enoka, F., & Suaesi, T. (2017). Traditional ecological knowledge of the critically endangered tooth-billed pigeon Didunculus strigirostris, endemic to Samoa. Bird Conservation International, 28(4), 620-642. doi:10.1017/s0959270917000259
Baumann, S., & Beichle, U. (2020). Acoustical identification of Didunculus Strigirostris, critically endangered tooth-billed pigeon of Samoa. Journal of Ornithology, 161(2), 439-446. doi:10.1007/s10336-019-01742-y
Serra, G., Wood, G. R., Faiilagi, S. A., Foliga, S. T., Uili, M., & Enoka, F. (2021). Using Samoan traditional ecological knowledge to identify calls of the critically endangered endemic tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris). Pacific Conservation Biology, 27(3), 275-283. doi:10.1071/pc20052
Funding is needed to save Samoa’s ‘little dodo’ from extinction (commentary)
LATEST NEWS
Funding is needed to save Samoa’s ‘little dodo’ from extinction (commentary)
See All Key Ideas
It’s early August 2025. Deep in the rainforests of Upolu, on the island of Samoa, Moeumu “Moe” Uili and I have paused our hike, counting the seconds between coo calls from an unseen pigeon hidden in the dense canopy.
Moe mutters, “Nah, the intervals between the calls are too irregular. That’s got to be a lupe,” referring to the much more common Pacific imperial pigeon (Ducula pacifica).
“Are you still using the number of coo calls per sequence to distinguish lupe from manumea?” I ask per the latter bird and the object of our search: the tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris), also called “the little dodo.”
“Not anymore,” she replies. “Turns out lupe can have sequences of up to 40 calls …”
“Damn,” I sigh.
A bird ‘hide’ or ‘blind’ built in Uafato in hopes of facilitating an extremely rare sighting of an adult manumea, Samoa’s critically endangered ‘little dodo.’ Image courtesy of Samoa Conservation Society.
It’s been a few years since I last joined a manumea search, and I’m glad to be here again. The rainforest of Samoa still enchants me — its timeless atmosphere, stifling humidity, slippery trails, and chorus of bizarre bird calls. Towering tree ferns, giant leaves, dangling lichens, parasitic orchids and humongous strangling ficus (“the kings of the forest,” or aoa in Samoan) all surrounded by a cacophony of pigeons, doves and honey-eaters. Among them, the high-pitched whistles of the ma‘oma‘o (Gymnomyza samoensis), an endangered and endemic giant honey-eater, pierces the stillness. It’s one of the most haunting, otherworldly sounds in Samoa.
As with many oceanic islands, Samoa has served across the depths of time as an open-air laboratory of evolution. It has fostered bizarre adaptations like waterbirds that thrive far from water — such as the flat-billed kingfisher (Todiramphus recurvirostris), the Pacific golden plover (Pluvialis fulva), the purple swamphen (Porphyrio melanotus samoensis), and the buff-banded rail (Hypotaenidia philippensis) — and swiftlets that flit like bats low through the forest.
But few creatures are as peculiar as the manumea. Its thick, curved bill is unique among pigeons. It fills a niche more typical of parrots, using its specialized beak to crack the hard fruits of the maota (Dysoxylum spp.) tree. It’s listed among the planet’s most evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered (EDGE) species, ranked 8th out of a total of 662 birds. Manumea are a conservation icon within the Pacific oceanic region, and one of only three living relatives of that ultimate symbol of oceanic extinctions: the dodo of Mauritius, Raphus cucullatus.
Since 2014, the manumea has been listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. That year, it was uplisted from endangered after researchers realized that earlier abundance estimates had been drastically overinflated. The confusion stemmed from its call, which closely resembles that of the lupe. Previous population estimates by Ulf Beichle, the authority on the species, relied heavily on vocal identifications, and were later shown to be significantly overestimated.
The critically endangered ‘little dodo’ is an icon in Samoa and adorns coins and currency like this 20 tala note.
Since I began studying the species in 2014, I realized that nobody was really able to tell the two species apart based on the call, and I dared to publish this plain fact. Since then, it’s been widely accepted that we did not yet have a definitive understanding of the call, and that realization launched a years-long effort to solve the mystery — an effort that, even now, remains unresolved.
By then, it had become evident that the species had suffered a sharp decline starting in the 1990s, due to a familiar cocktail of human-driven threats: deforestation of lowland rainforests (manumea prime habitat), the spread of invasive mammals, and bycatch from lupe hunters.
Compounding the problem is this bird’s extremely shy, elusive nature. Whether its cryptic behavior is a recent adaptation to threats or a long-standing trait is debated. Beichle insists that during his fieldwork in the 1980s, sightings were relatively straightforward.
Remarkably, no clear photograph exists of an adult manumea in its natural habitat. The opportunity of a high-quality image was missed when sightings were still common in the 1980s, and the best photos taken by Beichle are of caged birds. Moe captured the only decent photo in 2013, but it was of a juvenile perched outside her hotel room at the forest edge. It’s probably no coincidence that the only clear image of a wild adult in full plumage shows a freshly killed specimen resting in the hands of a local pigeon hunter, taken by the late botanist Art Whistler in the early 2000s.
Arguably Samoa’s leading manumea expert, despite being only in her early 40s, Moe has devoted more than a decade to its conservation, first with the environment ministry, where I first met her, and then with the Samoa Conservation Society (Sosaiete Fa’asao o Samoa, or SFS), while pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Colorado in the U.S. Soft-spoken and knowledgeable, she has acquired an extraordinary wealth of field experience.
Moe is joined in her research these days by Vilikesa “Vili” Masibalavu, a veteran conservationist from Fiji. In the early 2000s, following the Fijian coup, he left a government position to work for BirdLife Fiji, and has since dedicated his life to surveying rare and unusual Pacific birds. A gentleman in his 60s, Vili has become a key collaborator with BirdLife’s regional Pacific office.
A juvenile manumea photographed by Ulf Beichle.
I’ve only ever seen a manumea once — and only for half a second, in flight, in the Uafato Forest in 2016 — just a week after Vili had a confirmed sighting in the same spot. Its vibrant bill, red and yellow, flashed in the sunlight like a parrot’s, a surreal moment I’ll never forget. That fleeting glimpse remains my only definite encounter, despite years of searching. In the last decade, there have been only three confirmed sightings — each at the same location.
“You know,” Vili said during our hike, “sometimes I wonder if the bird I saw in 2016 and again in 2024 is the same individual … Maybe one of the last left on Upolu.” I looked at him in silence, sharing the same fear, as tropicbirds in courtship display with fairy trailing tails wheeled above the forest canopy down in the valley.
In 2019, the SFS and partners developed the Manumea Recovery Plan for 2020-2029. Since then, they’ve secured several grants from international donors to lead the implementation of the plan in collaboration with the Samoan Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE).
Identifying the manumea’s call remains a top priority. As Moe puts it, “It would be a game changer. Right now, we don’t even have a reliable distribution map, let alone a population estimate for this bird.” By the time we realized we lacked a confirmed call, the bird had already become too rare and elusive to observe calling in the wild. Beichle’s few recordings from the 1980s were made with analog devices and are of limited analytical quality. Today, only three coo call sequences can be confidently attributed to the manumea.
To tackle this obstacle, I collaborated extensively with Indigenous pigeon hunters between 2016 and 2020, combining their local ecological knowledge with bioacoustic analysis from automated recordings in the forest. In 2020, two papers (Baumann and Beichle and my own) offered conflicting findings, but both highlighted — independently and using different methodologies — one possible clue: the regularity of coo call intervals in a sequence. Manumea sequences seem more evenly spaced than lupe calls, and if verified, this pattern could become a critical tool for acoustic identification.
Moe and the SFS, now with support from BirdLife and the IUCN, have sought help from Cornell University and Colossal Biosciences to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to the problem. But even AI struggles without a sufficient data set. The lack of confirmed manumea recordings remains the main barrier.
Public education efforts like this new mural seek to raise the profile of Samoa’s ‘little dodo.’ Image courtesy of Samoa Conservation Society.
Over the years, various zoos have expressed interest in captive-breeding programs, but how can you breed a bird you can’t find? Capturing individuals would require multiple confirmed sightings and careful logistics — neither of which currently exist.
The story of the poʻouli — a Hawaiian honeycreeper discovered in 1973 and declared extinct in 2003 — looms over the manumea’s fate. Despite decades of research, poorly coordinated conservation efforts failed to save it. I cited the poʻouli as a cautionary tale in the Manumea Recovery Plan: a textbook conservation case of “too little, too late.”
I asked James Atherton, president of the SFS, for his view on the situation: “Are we witnessing the inevitable extinction of this unique species, or is the scarcity of sightings misleading us?”
“Option 1,” he replied instinctively. Then, pausing, he added, “But we have to hope. We can’t give up. We have to keep searching.”
When I asked what’s most needed to save the manumea, Atherton’s answer was simple: “One: funding. Two: funding. Three: funding.”
And he’s right. The recovery plan is barely 20% implemented at its halfway mark. The SFS has made commendable progress in recent years — raising awareness at the national level, controlling rats within a key conservation area, creating new community conservation areas, and continuing field surveys.
But it’s not enough. Not for a critically endangered bird — Samoa’s national icon, proudly depicted on the 20-tala note and 50-sene coin — nor for a species as important to local cultural heritage.
Artist’s concept of a flying adult manumea, Samoa’s ‘little dodo.’ Image via Samoa Conservation Society’s manumea conservation fundraising page.
In my view, a large-scale, multiyear forest conservation project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and led by the MNRE is essential. “After all,” Moe reminds me, “the manumea, along with other pigeons, doves and flying foxes, are key seed dispersers of the Samoan rainforest.”
As we conclude our hike, the sun dips low over the trees, and the sky fills with the slow silhouettes of hundreds of flying foxes — Samoa’s largest airborne terrestrial creatures — gliding above the canopy and ready for breakfast.
When I spoke with Suemalo Talie Foliga, acting CEO of the Department of Environment and Conservation in the MNRE, he seemed cautiously and vaguely optimistic that future international funding might be allocated to such a project. I shared my hope that the manumea’s stronghold may lie hidden in remote, largely unexplored mountain forests of Savai‘i. For logistical and financial reasons, most fieldwork has focused on Upolu, home to the capital, Apia. But Savai‘i still boasts the largest intact tropical rainforest in Polynesia.
Suemalo, a native of Savai‘i, agreed: “A thorough search of Savai‘i mountain rainforest must involve the surrounding coastal villages. They are the traditional custodians of the land. Before any exploration begins, we need to build trust and hold open discussions with them.”
Only with their support, adequate resources, and renewed urgency, can we hope to prevent the silent extinction of the manumea — the enigmatic Little Dodo of Samoa.
Gianluca Serra is a wildlife ecologist from Florence, Italy, with 25 years of international experience in conservation of biodiversity and endangered species, community-based protected areas management through international aid, and the valuing of Indigenous knowledge.
Related audio from Mongabay’s podcast: A discussion with author Natalie Kyriacou, whose new book about conservation, action and biophilia is always honest and often humorous, listen here:
See related coverage of conservation in Samoa:
Samoa’s new marine spatial plan protects 30% of the country’s ocean
See related by this author:
The effort to save Syria’s northern bald ibis population failed, but much can be learned (analysis)
Citations:
Serra, G., Sherley, G., Failagi, S. A., Foliga, S. T., Uili, M., Enoka, F., & Suaesi, T. (2017). Traditional ecological knowledge of the critically endangered tooth-billed pigeon Didunculus strigirostris, endemic to Samoa. Bird Conservation International, 28(4), 620-642. doi:10.1017/s0959270917000259
Baumann, S., & Beichle, U. (2020). Acoustical identification of Didunculus Strigirostris, critically endangered tooth-billed pigeon of Samoa. Journal of Ornithology, 161(2), 439-446. doi:10.1007/s10336-019-01742-y
Serra, G., Wood, G. R., Faiilagi, S. A., Foliga, S. T., Uili, M., & Enoka, F. (2021). Using Samoan traditional ecological knowledge to identify calls of the critically endangered endemic tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris). Pacific Conservation Biology, 27(3), 275-283. doi:10.1071/pc20052
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